


Cafe Bucky's Room (And Some Other Venues)

by tamanegichipolla (ImJustNutty)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), this is my post-endgame therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18643894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImJustNutty/pseuds/tamanegichipolla
Summary: Post-Endgame. Bucky gets a lot of guests. He thinks it's because he has an impressive supply of tea leaves. The real reason is because he has friends now, and reality is too tough to deal with alone.





	Cafe Bucky's Room (And Some Other Venues)

**Author's Note:**

> I did not proofread this because I have exams coming up but I needed to get the trauma that is Endgame off my back through Creative Writing. If there are any glaring errors, try to resist the urge to write hate mail.  
> I have never written an MCU fic for the main reason that there are a lot of amazing writers out there in the fandom and I feel like in comparison my understanding of the characters and my writing is very inferior. However, my friends have convinced me to write/publish anyway, so enjoy I guess. 
> 
> Also, a lot of spoilers for Endgame.

Bucky doesn’t quite know how he’s reached this point of becoming everyone’s Agony Aunt, and part of him attributes it to his well-stocked mini-pantry of tea leaves. It has something for everyone.

Today, he can hear Sam’s heavy sigh before the man even raises a hand to knock. Bucky glances at his shelves to make sure he’s got his rooibos chocolate vanilla tea jar sufficiently full before opening the door, revealing a sullen Sam with his hand raised and ready to knock.

“Oh! Uh, hey Bucky.”

Bucky opens the door a little wider, and Sam steps in muttering apologies and hope-you-aren’t-too-busys. Bucky puts on the little plastic kettle he has on his desk and selected a mug to put tea leaves in while Sam plonks himself into Bucky’s only chair in the room.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, “but I had another go in the training room with the shield and I just…” He trails off, crossing his fingers together and resting his elbows on his knees.

“It’s hard, y’know? Not just using the shield—I think I could get used to it in no time, it’s very well balanced, but more like the weight of everything, the thought of being _him_.”

He straightens slightly. “No, I could never be him, you’re right, that’s _totally_ insensitive of me, I didn’t fight in the war—I mean I’m a veteran but not _the_ war. World War Two. The one you were in. Oh man I am so sorry.”

The kettle clicks, and Bucky pours the water into the mug immediately. Rooibos does best with boiling water, he remembers. He hands the mug to Sam. 

Sam looks at the mug. “Thank you.”

Bucky sits on the corner of his bed. Sam takes a good long sip, and his hands seem to shake less now. Sam looks up at Bucky at long last.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

Bucky blinks. “I thought I was the veteran counsellor for the day.”

“I’m asking as a friend.”

Bucky shrugs. “It’s fine,” he says, lying only a little bit.

Sam doesn’t say anything, and Bucky doesn’t elaborate. Steve used to make Bucky go for therapy, and there were times where Bucky made it a lowkey competition as to who could go the longest without talking. It wasn’t difficult—he already spent a good majority of his life not having to talk to anyone.

Bucky isn’t sure if he could manage to talk it out with anyone without shattering into a million pieces. He’s happy for Steve, and he’s also delighted that he got the second chance. Steve’s still around, still very fit for his age and happy to race anyone on foot, but Bucky can’t shake the feeling that somehow he just got left behind in time on his own.

Sam sighs heavily. “You sure you don’t want to give the shield a go yourself?”

Bucky smirks. “I don’t think your ego would be able to cope when I master it way before you do.”

Sam grins, and it reaches his eyes. “Is that what you think?”

He spreads his hands. “Just stating the facts.”

Sam downs the rest of his tea and goes to rinse his mug out. “How about you just help me out with practice? I’m going for another round after this.”

Bucky wonders if, as Sam’s veteran counsellor, he should tell him to take a break or encourage him to continue until he gets better. He decides that they both need the distraction, and goes to change out his baggy pyjama pants into some actual gym wear. “Alright, but don’t go crying to Steve when his shield bounces and give you a nosebleed again.”

 

 

 

Bucky remembers the feeling of using Steve’s shield.

It was when they were fighting Iron Man together, him and Steve. The shield, he knew, was made to be light and easy to use, but in his hand, it felt much too heavy. Heavy with the weight of protecting people, with the hopes and dreams of so many people past, present and future. Heavy with the knowledge that he would never be worthy of bearing it. How could he, with so much blood on his hands? The blood of people who didn’t deserve to be killed—not the innocent, because no one is truly innocent.

And the last time he used it, it was to fight Iron Man. Tony Stark, the son of two people he killed under orders. A hero who died to save the world.

Bucky doesn’t want to stain Steve’s shield with his hands.

 

 

 

His next visitor is Bruce. Bucky isn’t quite sure what to offer a guy who runs his own diner and undoubtedly cooks and prepares food much better than he does, but fortunately Bruce seems perfectly content with a chai latte. Steve bought Bucky a milk frother while he was in Wakanda because he noticed Bucky experimenting with making coffees, and it is one of Bucky’s all-time favourite items. Granted, he doesn’t own much, but wow. A milk frother. What a luxurious concept.

He puts an obscene amount of sugar into the mug, just the way Bruce requests. Bruce gingerly sits in the chair, and it holds. Bucky presents him with his mug of chai, and in exchange Bruce offers a little book. The book is actually normal sized, but in Bruce’s hands it looks tiny.

“What is it?” says Bucky, taking it.

“It’s…one of hers,” Bruce replies so gently, Bucky almost couldn’t hear it.

Bucky runs his right hand over the cover. It’s bound in a nice, smooth red cloth. He opens the front cover.

It says _War and Peace_ in Russian on the inside. The paper is brown, thin, and much too delicate for him to handle with his left hand.

“I hope this isn’t too strange, but I was just clearing out her things and I found this. It’s in Russian, so…” Bruce trails off. He hasn’t spoken to Bucky much before, and Bucky isn’t quite sociable enough to know how to handle this.

“I can read this,” Bucky says slowly. He mentally slaps himself upside the head for stating the obvious.

Bruce, however, takes this as encouragement and visibly lights up slightly. “Oh! Well, that’s good! It’s certainly of more use to you than it is to me.” He frowns slightly. “She doesn’t have much in her room, but every now and then I find something that seems either dangerous to open or I just don’t know what to do with it.”

“Like Russian literature?”

“Yeah, exactly. I don’t want to open some confidential folder and risk getting anthrax on me.”

Bucky squints. “Can you even get anthrax?”

Bruce shrugs. “Maybe I’ll just cough so hard the walls break.”

Bucky glances at the clock. He has two hours before Sam drags him to another round of Captain America Training.

“I can help you sort out Natasha’s things. At least I’ll be able to read if any of the folders are labelled ‘DANGER’ in Russian.”

Bruce laughs. “I’d appreciate it, man.” He puts down his mug with surprising gentleness, and smiles sadly. “Really do.”

Bucky nods. He really isn’t trained for this.

 

 

He finds a folder entirely in Russian that details the training that Natasha had in the Red Room. He doesn’t tell anyone that it mentions that the Winter Soldier was personally involved in her training. He tosses it into the To Burn pile. It probably has anthrax on it, he says. Bruce doesn’t question it.

 

 

Bucky doesn’t have a tea for the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Apparently, Thor just wanted to say bye to everyone before they all left, and Rocket particularly remembered that Bucky had an arm he’d love to steal, and everyone sort of ended up in his room.

Bucky is fully aware that his room isn’t very large. The new Avengers headquarters building is decently sized, and with Stark Industries continuing to sponsor its construction, the rooms are very generous. But the pale blueish fellow with all the subtlety of a tank seems to take up a quarter of the room just by existing, Thor doesn’t seem to want to sit still for long, and someone brought up a whole barrel of some kind of ale.

He can’t even remember what the conversation is about. With this group of people, it’s very inane and tends to flit from topic to topic very quickly. Nebula and Gamora have opted to sit quietly in a corner, but Bucky feels slightly too threatened to offer them tea. He’s not scared per se, but his training doesn’t quite permit him to offer tea to someone he feels might try to gut him with a butter knife at any moment.

Still, he remembers fighting beside Rocket, and Thor was one of the first few people who chatted to him when he was introduced to the Avengers. He was going to miss him somewhat, when he went off on his adventures. No one seemed sure as to when they would come back to Earth (“When we need more mead!” “Can you stop being an alcoholic for more than two seconds?” “I’M THE CAPTAIN, I’LL DECIDE WHEN WE COME BACK TO EARTH.” “But what about the mead?”) so that meant less friends around for a while.

So Bucky settled himself in his own corner, mug of sencha wrapped in his hands, and allowed himself to enjoy the cacophony while it was still around.

 

 

 

Steve liked regular black tea with two sugars and a touch of milk. Apparently, after spending a lifetime with Peggy, the amount of milk he wants in his tea has approximately tripled.

“If you don’t put enough milk, you’re being stingy,” Steve explains with a smile, eyes crinkling. Bucky tries very hard not to stare, and slides the mug over with the appropriately adjusted volume of milk.

Bucky walks to Steve’s house every few days, whenever there aren’t bad guys to fight, heroes to spar with or chores to do. Steve got himself a nice little house in Brooklyn, not too far from the headquarters. Bucky doesn’t mind the walk there.

Bucky isn’t sure about whether to ask Steve about his newfound life experience—having lived a good few years in the modern world, then going back to post-war America, and then going through the whole Industrial Revolution back to modern day.

Time travelling sounds much too complicated. Much easier to go forward in a linear progression, get frozen in stasis for years at a time and still make it out on the other end with touchscreen phones and automated machine guns.

Bucky carries their two mugs of tea onto the front porch. Steve is still very fit for his age (which is what, two hundred years now?) but Bucky doesn’t feel right letting a man with snow-white hair carry his beverages for him.

They settle in the chairs and watch the leaves blow by in the gentle breeze.

Bucky searches for neutral questions that won’t break his perception of space and time.

“How did Peggy react when she saw you?”

Steve looks down and chuckles. “Well, first she took a step back and her hand went to her pistol. Then I tried to explain who I was, spread my hands to show that I wasn’t armed, and then I think I got suplexed at some point.”

Bucky laughs. “Touching reunion.”

Steve gives him a wry smile. “Seems to be the way with meeting my nearest and dearest friends.”

Bucky frowns.

“Anyway, I told her everything I remembered, she realised I wasn’t Hydra, and then she finally hugged me without intent to kill.” Steve lies back with a smile. “It was really amazing.”

Bucky hears a crack. He looks down, and realises he has managed to separate the mug from its handle with his left hand. He tries to put them back together and feign normalcy.

Steve looks at him. “Thank you for letting me go back.”

Bucky forces a grin. “You say that as if I had a choice.”

“You’re pretty strong.”

“You’re pretty stubborn.”

Steve tilts his head. “You got me there.”

Bucky sighs and leans back in his chair. “How could I deny you the one thing you’ve wanted since you’ve woken up in this time?”

Steve gazes out toward the empty street before them. There was a long pause before he spoke again.

“I missed you terribly, Buck.”

Bucky tenses ever so slightly.

“I had to wait from the time I first saw Peggy again all the way until the moment you teleported me back in time to be able to talk to you again. Even when I heard all these stories of the Winter Soldier, of all the things you were doing and all the instances of you being seen, I couldn’t do anything.”

Bucky turns and faces Steve. “If you start crying on me now Steve I swear—”

Tears are already streaming from Steve’s eyes. “I had to wait for history to take its course, but it was terrible—”

The mug shatters in Bucky’s metal hand. Steve stops. Bucky looks at his now wet pant leg.

There’s another long silence.

Bucky sighs, shaking his hand to get the liquid off. “Look Steve, I don’t need to see you cry after you made the decision to finally live your life the way you wanted. You did the right thing, yes it sucked big time that I had to…” he waved his right hand in the air. “All that shit. But it’s okay! You got me out, we kicked Thanos’ purple ass, and now we’re all mostly happy and satisfied.”

Bucky shut his mouth, stunned that he’d even managed to say so much.

“Bucky—”

“Uh,” he managed.

Steve stood up and wrapped his arms around Bucky. “Thank you, Buck.”

Bucky pats Steve awkwardly on the back. “It’s fine,” he says, and believes it.

 

 

 

Bucky kicks Sam’s door thrice.

Sam opens it. “Hey man, not cool. Training isn’t till 3, and the hinges of my door aren’t that strong—”

Bucky hands him his mug of strawberry white tea, walks past Sam, sits in one of Sam’s chairs and wraps his fingers around his own mug of tea. “I feel better now.”

Sam looks down at the mug and closes the door. “Um, congratulations?”

“How do I cope with my two-hundred-year-old friend bursting out into tears in front of me because he feels guilty that he left me behind even though he didn’t?”

“Um.” Sam looks like he isn’t sure where he should be, and it’s his own room. “Do you feel like he left you behind?”

“No,” Bucky says immediately. Then he pauses. He sips his tea.

Sam is patient. He also sips his tea, and frowns at the cup. “Not sure what I think about this one, Bucky.”

“Maybe I did? At some point? But I can’t, because that would make me a horrible friend. Which I am not.”

“I think it’s important for you to acknowledge this feeling of abandonment and then work it out, maybe talk to—”

“But I don’t.”

“—Steve or me or someone about it and—”

“Not at all.”

“—then you can start to heal from it, as we all need to.”

“Zilch.”

Sam stares at Bucky. “So not at all?”

Bucky stares into his mug. “Nope,” he drags out slowly.

Sam nods, walks over and pats Bucky on the shoulder. “If you’re sure, that’s good. But you know you can always talk to me.”

Bucky exhales deeply. “Okay.”

“So, is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

Bucky nods. “So how come I don’t get to be the new Captain America?”

Sam raises an eyebrow and drinks his tea. “Maybe because you have shitty taste in leaf water.”

“Aren’t you supposed to say something like “you’re better suited to other roles” or “you are, but Steve wants to challenge you” or some shit like that?”

Sam shrugs. “Gotta keep you on your toes. What’s the point if you know everything I’m going to say?”

“Also, show some respect for white tea.”

“Oh, so now this is a race issue.”

Bucky snorts, but doesn’t bother hiding his grin. “We can go train now and we’ll see who can really use that shield.”

Sam grins back. “And if you lose, you become my sidekick like in the old comics right?”

Bucky scowls, and mimes throwing his mug at Sam’s face. “No way in hell.”

“Hey, watch it, you don’t want to ruin the face of Captain America.”

Sam turns and walks into his closet to change for training, and Bucky walks over to where the shield is in the corner of the room. He picks it up with his right hand, and looks at his left.

The contrast is astounding.

Sam emerges in his gym wear and nods approvingly at the sight of Bucky with the shield. “It looks fitting.”

Bucky clenches his metal fingers together. “Not really.” He tosses the shield to Sam, who catches it smoothly. “But that’s okay. Now, are you ready to get your ass kicked?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I have never read War and Peace  
> 2) I don't like strawberry white tea, sorry to my friend Charlotte who is not in fandom but loves the stuff.  
> 3) I wanted to write an ending about how Sam and Bucky play around with the shield until it breaks and then they're like lol lets call Tony to fix it and then Tony yells at them and then I remember Tony died and then I got really sad and also didn't know how to continue it for a good long time and had to rewrite the ending multiple times haha :'D


End file.
